ISLAMABAD – *Pakistan is all set to start a project on ArtificialIntelligence with the government allocating around Rs 1.1 billion for that.*
Under the supervision of Higher Education Commission (HEC), Government ofPakistan has assigned a budget of Rs 1.1 billion for a period of threeyears for starting a project on Artificial Intelligence. Six public sectoruniversities have been picked out for setting up nine labs to carry outresearch in the field of AI.
As per *Tech Juice, *HEC has appointed Dr Yasir Ayaz from NationalUniversity of Science and Technology (NUST) as a head of this project. Ayazalso expressed that this initiative was a right one taken by the Pakistanigovernment.
*Huawei and Pakistan IT Ministry collaborate at MWC 2018*link>
He said, “This is an era of fourth industrial revolution (Industry 4.0) butPakistan is still living in the second industrial revolution (Industry 2.0)era. We were lagging far behind the rest of the world as the developedcountries have started using AI to maximize the production of theindustrial sector. The use of robotics in the warfare is becoming a routinematter whereas AI is being used by the modern world for surveillancepurpose.”
Out of 19 universities from public and private sectors that applied for theproject, six public sector universities were selected based on equipmentand facility. Among the universities, the selected ones include NED UETKarachi, University of Punjab Lahore, NUST Islamabad, University ofEngineering and Technology (UET) Peshawar, UET Lahore, and ComsatsInstitute of Information Technology (CIIT) University.
The project’s headquarter will be set at NUST and two laboratories will bearranged, Intelligent Robotics Lab and Deep Learning Lab. Medical Imagingand Diagnostic Lab will be arranged by CIIT University, and NET UET Karachihas been granted for two labs, Smart City Lab and Neuro Computation Lab.
Moreover, UET Lahore has been approved of creating an IntelligentCriminology Lab along with Punjab University to develop Agent-BasedComputational Modeling Lab. Ayaz also informed that every university willbe initially provided with Rs. 70-75 million to set up the labs. Eachuniversity will also offer Masters and Ph.D. in the field of AI, localmedia reported.